Snow Leopard Trek – Ladakh – Meet the Grey Ghost

Snow Leopard Trek in Hemis National Park- an Experience Straight out of a NatGeo Documentary

19th to 27th February, 2016

At a glance

Duration: 8 nights/ 9 days

Tour: Leh, Ladakh – Hemis National Park, Ladakh – Leh, Ladakh

Getting there: Flight to Leh and back to your home town

Difficulty levelTrek is moderate, however, minimum temperatures will be in -20 degrees range

Be prepared for: Lots of snow, wildlife sightings, an absolutely incredible experience, stay in hotels, village home stays and camping (depending on weather conditions)

What is this all about? Join us, as we go to Hemis National Park, a high altitude national park in Ladakh, for an adventurous trek that trails the elusive Snow Leopard. The highlight of this 9-day trek includes living with a motley group of adventure enthusiasts in sub-zero temperatures, seeing exquisite flora and fauna like blue sheep, chukar, red fox, great tit, magpie, robin accentor and golden eagle, and of course follow the trail of big cat with an expert snow leopard spotter. The park is known as the Snow Leopard Capital of the World as it has the highest density of snow leopards in the world (200 in this region) and is regarded as the best place to see this creature in its wild habitat. This adventure of a lifetime is for those who truly appreciate offbeat trails and have the taste for extraordinary experiences. While giving you an exclusive view of how people live in frozen alpine region, this trip also treats you to the other most famous point of interest from the region-the 400 year old Hemis Monastery. This GoMissing Special trip has all the advantages that any GoMissing trips come with! Expert guides, seamless planning and logistics, high experiential travel, an opportunity to see places and do things very few get the chance to do, and the best of all, a fabulous group of people who will become friends for life! Take a look at the itinerary and book for the February 2016 early on to avoid disappointment!

Make it happen! Give us a call

Reach Leh. Spend the first two days at Leh for high altitude acclimatization. Leh is at an altitude of over 3500m above sea level and we need to acclimatise for the first two days before starting our onward journey. The first two days will be spent in Leh acclimatizing and doing a little bit of sightseeing in Leh town.

Day 3:

We leave for the base camp at Hemis National Park. We will drive to Zingchen, just before our base camp at Husing. From this point, we walk for an hour to reach the base camp. The base camp is close to the Rumbak Valley, where the sightings of snow leopard are quite common.

Day 4 to 7:

Keeping Husing as the base camp, we trek each day to places where Snow Leopards are last sighted. We leave early morning after breakfast and start walking towards designated vantage points for the day. The guides and snow leopard spotters keenly follow various Leopard prides and their movements within their territories.

Any movement or sighting is reported to the camp from where we can follow the trail. In case we spend a lot of time in a particular region during the day, our cooks and porters get breakfast/lunch or tea to the vantage point without us having to disrupt our viewing. During these treks, you will come across the other fauna of the region: Blue Sheep (Bharal), Himalayan Marmot, Mountain Weasel, Ladakhi Urial (Shapu), Asiatic Ibex, Tibetan Wolf, Eurasian Brown Bear, Chukar, Red Fox, Great Tit, Magpie, Robin Accentor and Golden Eagle, the Lammergeier vulture, and the Himalayan Griffon Vulture.

Day 8:

We pack our bags after the morning lookout and leave for Leh and stay in Leh for the night.

Day 9:

We check out in the morning and drop you to the airport where the trip ends.